So This Is What It's Come To...

Man, I was so excited last night! I got this email from Full Tilt that said if I made a $20 donation to the PPA that I would get a $50 bonus on Full Tilt! Woohoo, free money! Of course, I still don't know if I'd ever be able to cash out if I were to win anything, but at least it would be money to play. Although I am comfortable with not playing online poker right now, I still wish I was playing, and I regret taking my entire bankroll to the PLO8 table. I should have just saved it, if for anything, to play in a couple more Mookies.

Anyways, once I read the fine print, I discovered that it was a $50 playing bonus, meaning I would have to continue playing and accrue 1000 FPP before my bonus would be released. C'est la vie.

So as for now, here's what my poker playing options are:

1. Full Tilt FPP tournaments. I have abour 300 points or so, and I'll try to play some of these tournaments to see if I'm lucky enough to score a token or too. Of course, the size of these things ends up growing to be a pretty significant size, larger than any tournament I've final-tabled. So it's kind of sad that, if I were to take one of these down, it would be the biggest field I've ever conquered, only to score a $26 or a $75 token. The other problem is that most of these start at 11:45am my time, so I would only be able to play these on weekend mornings.

Or I can just play this:

I’m registered in the free BloggerPods poker tournament.
Poker Mac

2. Seattle Poker Open. At the advice of my brother, I'm looking into these free bar-sponsored tournaments. I've never been a big advocate of these because they tend to be bigger donkaments than anything you'll see online. But what makes this appealing is two things. One, I'll have an opportunity to meet other poker players in Seattle, maybe make new friends, discover some good home games. Two, each week the SPO sends the weekly points leader to a Saturday tournament at the biggest casino up here, Tulalip, with the $90 buyin fully covered. I have no doubt that I'd be able to do well at these, and two of the three bars that sponsor the tournaments are very close by, the other within driving distance. To qualify for the chance at a buyin there's a $45 fee per season, and although I think that's a ripoff it's totally doable, and right now it's probably my best option.

3. Local card rooms. The problem with this is the expense. The cheapest tournaments around here are $35, and playing more than one of those a month is not something I can afford right now. There's a nice $40 double stack tournament at the aforementioned Tulalip casino, but the problem about any tournament there is that the casino is about an hour's drive away.

4. Home Games. I probably won't have another home game until next month. My home games will have to be outside on our patio from now on since we just go a new dining table. But it's still pretty chilly and wet at night, and I'll have to secure some lighting for the patio before I plan another game. Once the summer hits and the sun's out until 10pm I'll be able to host more games. Until then, I'm sure I can find other home games in the area; I always see a couple posted on Craigslist each week, but I'm skeptical about going to some random dude's house to play poker.

5. Gift2Go. I am considering purchasing one of these Gift2Go cards to deposit some money back on Full Tilt. I don't plan on risking my bankroll again anytime soon. But I would like to have some money on there again, mostly just to play the Mookie. The three times I've played in blogger tournaments I've had a lot of fun, more so than most other tournaments. I don't intend to start my hardcore donkey ways again, but I wouldn't mind playing a couple more of these.

Now that I've had some time away from online poker I've become more comfortable with stepping away from it. Of course I still have the itch to play every day, but it hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would. I think it's best for me to start looking at different options for live poker and start getting back into playing live.